What I Want to See in SUPERGIRL Season 2

This post originally appeared on Panels, which is now Book Riot Comics

On Friday, we finally got news that Supergirl would live to fly again. And basically the whole of the Panels crew sighed with relief. Yes, the show is moving to the CW (maybe Kara was just “too female” for CBS) and that’ll mean some budget cuts, but considering the CW is where its showrunners have their other various series and where Supergirl’s buddy Barry Allen hangs out, it might end up being a good fit (especially if they end up doing a Crisis on Infinite Earths-esque mash-up of the Flash’s Earth and Supergirl’s).

Of course, now the speculation begins for what the fall season will bring. I could talk about the things we got in season one and want to get more of: more great hero moments from Melissa Benoist, more Kara and Lucy clearly having a Korra/Asami thing going on, another Flash/Supergirl crossover, more Cat Grant being perfect. Instead I’m going to get into the new things Supergirl could do in season two — the things that could really take the show to the next level.

This post contains minor spoilers for SUPERGIRL season one.

Miss Martian
Supergirl season one gave us J’onn J’onzz, aka Martian Manhunter, as portrayed by the fantastic David Harewood. Season one also gave us insight into Martian history and societies in DC canon, which included both the existence of the White Martians and the White Martians being the reason J’onn lost his family. How perfect would it be for M’gann to show up on earth, lost and without her family and for J’onn to become her family? This would also be the perfect opportunity to cast a young woman of color in a prominent role on the show (something desperately needed on the show in general).

Lois Lane
I’ll be honest — I could be okay if Clark Kent/Superman never really shows up on the show. Let him be the off-screen best cousin ever who sends Kara supportive IMs with dorky smiley face emojis. But you know who absolutely needs to show up in season two? Lois Freaking Lane! She is one of the coolest characters DC has — a “civilian” among superpowered heroes who saves the day by her smarts and gumption and mean right hook. Season one had a lot of Lois smacktalk from Cat Grant (and Lois’ sister Lucy mentioned not being on good terms with her right now, either), but having the flesh and blood Lois there in all her Lois-ness will put some real perspective on her complicated relationships with both Cat and Lucy. Mostly, I want to see Cat and Lois go head to head in a quip off as longtime professional rivals. And I want to see Lois be another pillar of support for Kara.

More Women of Color in General
There are a lot of white women on this show. I’m sure the next season will introduce new female characters, probably many with ongoing roles, and the show absolutely needs to be casting women of color as a more prominent part of the story. I mentioned Miss Martian above, but that’s far from the only possibility for the casting department.

Batgirl
There was a quick piece of dialogue towards the end of season two that hinted at darker caped heroes in another city. Since we know from the Flash crossover that there’s no Green Arrow or Flash in Kara’s version of earth, a reasonable guess is that Kara was referring to a Batfamily in Gotham. So the obvious choice here is to bring my all-time favorite heroine to the small screen. And if Supergirl did this, I would probably die of joy.

I’m fond of the Burnside costume for Barbara Gordon (imagine a teaser shot of just those yellow boots standing on a rooftop), but if the writers wanted to recreate Kara and Stephanie Brown’s friendship from the Bryan Q. Miller run, I am totally on board with Stephanie showing up as this universe’s Batgirl. And hey, Cassandra Cain would also be an interesting contrast to the Kara’s outgoing demeanor. Since I mentioned the need for women of color in this show, both Babs and Steph could easily be portrayed by women of color (along with Cass, of course). And if this led to Miss Martian and Batgirl and Supergirl forming their own version of the Justice League, with plenty of room for more heroines to be introduced, I am a-OK with that!

LGBTQ+ RepSupergirl season one was completely lacking in queer representation and that was a huge knock against it for many fans. It doesn’t help that the writers kept including dialogue for Kara appropriating phrases like “coming out” when talking about her identity as a hero. The show could improve so much by simply adding prominent roles for LGBTQ+ characters or revealing current characters to be LGBTQ+. Also, considering the CW’s iffy issues with killing off queer characters willy nilly, maybe keep those queer characters around instead of making them plot fodder (or have tons and tons of queer characters so if one of them dies it doesn’t read like the writers thought that the queer character was expendable).

One of the Super Pets
When it was evident that we weren’t going to see what was in the spacepod at the end of the Supergirl season one finale, one of my first guesses was that they were going to go pure Silver Age on us and give us one of the Super Pets. This isn’t as much of a “need to have” as the queer and racial representation — really, having one of the many super pets on the show would just be delightful. Krypto the Superdog, Streaky the Supercat, Beppo the Supermonkey … even Comet the Superhorse could have fit into that pod, right? Okay yes, this is probably a shot in the dark, but I want to see Kara riding a superpowered horse, dang it!

What would you like to see in SUPERGIRL season two?

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